Gerald Blaine, one of the secret service agents assigned to the Kennedy detail the day the President was assassinated on November 22, 1963, reports on his and his colleagues rememberances of the day. Mr. Blaine is joined in conversation, by his co-author Lisa McCubbin and Clint Hill, the agent who covered Jackie Kennedy following the shooting. The event is held at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.

About the Authors

Gerald Blaine

Gerald Blaine is a former U.S. Secret Service Agent who served on President Eisenhower's and President Kennedy's security detail. For more information, visit kennedydetail.com.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Thank you Sir for writing this book and preserving the truth about our history! I couldn’t put it down once I started. I learned so much about the way the Secret Service worked and the never imagined the sacrifices you made for our country.

I was only 11 in 1963 and never knew about the Secret Service being blamed for President Kennedy’s death but I did hear a number of the other theories you mentioned. Thank you again for giving us the real story in such a professional and tasteful manner.

May God continue to bless you, Mr. Clint Hill, and the rest of the Secret Service. Thank you for all you’ve given to preserve the freedoms in our country.

(P.S. I have bought additional copies of your book for Christmas gifts—thanks ! J)

Monday, December 27, 2010

ONE OF THE recurring questions that Gerald Blaine hears as he talks about President John F. Kennedy's assassination is why he now, 47 years later, chose to write a book about the tragedy.

The former Secret Service agent, who served throughout Kennedy's presidency, said someone needed to set the record straight.

"Unfortunately, since the assassination, history has been dominated by a cottage industry called conspiracy theory," he said. "When it finally reached the point where people started accusing the agents of being part of it, well ..."

No event in American history has been more thoroughly debated or dissected than the death of our 35th president. Conspiracy theorists have linked the assassination to organized crime, Fidel Castro and every alphabet organization from the KGB to the FBI to the CIA.

If you Google "JFK assassination," you will get 882,000 hits and dozens of far-flung theories.

Judging by the crowd at the Pleasanton Library on Sunday, when Blaine talked about his book, "Kennedy Detail," interest has not waned. About 250 people crammed into a room where a sign read: "Maximum Occupancy: 139." Dozens more were turned away.

Blaine, 84, said he went years without talking about JFK's death -- not even to his family.

"I didn't want to bother the family," he said, "and I didn't know how to deal with it. I found out that was consistent with every agent who worked for PresidentAdvertisementKennedy. Not one of them talked about it."

Blaine is certain that Lee Harvey Oswald worked alone. His marksmanship skills were more than adequate, and he perfectly fit an assassin's profile.

"He had psychiatric problems when he was a young man," Blaine said. "He had problems in military service and problems holding down a job. He even had a problem when he tried to defect, and he had a marriage that failed.

"Also, about a month or two before taking a shot at the president, he took a shot at a general in Texas. The bullet just missed, but it was traced back to Oswald's rifle."

Kennedy was shot while riding in an open-top car -- a president rides only in bulletproof vehicles today, Blaine said -- but that was in keeping with his personality. He wanted to see and be seen by the people.

The fateful Dallas appearance marked the last of several southern stops, including Tampa, Fla., San Antonio and Houston. Earlier in the trip, Secret Service agents rode on the back of the presidential limousine, which likely would have obstructed Oswald's aim. Kennedy stopped that.

"The president told us, 'I've got to use my political style, and my political style is to be among the people, to greet them and have them be able to see me,'" Blaine said.

The assassination still torments the former agent, but what makes matters worse is what he regards as misrepresentation of what he knows to be true.

"How many of you saw the movie 'JFK'?" he asked, referencing a film that reinforced conspiracy theories. "Unfortunately for our youth, that seems to be their history book.

"An article last month in USA Today said 82 percent of young people between 18 and 29 believe that President Kennedy's assassination was a conspiracy. "

He said he has no illusions of transforming the doubters, but he hopes his book, which includes input from fellow agents, will at least put facts on the table.

"If we make history out of the wild stories," he said, "you'll never trust history again."

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Book Review: The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence by Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin

The expression on the face of Miss Ola Cooper will forever be seared into my memory as she walked into our sixth grade classroom and announced that President Kennedy had been murdered in Dallas. Over the next few days of that surreal weekend, many images found a place in the minds and memories of people all over the world. I saw Lee Harvey Oswald gunned down on live (black and white) television. LBJ was sworn in as President, and later Mrs. Kennedy walked to the funeral service from the White House. And then there was the Zapruder film.

Special Agent Clint Hill was assigned to Mrs. Kennedy’s detail, which therefore accounts for his presence in Dallas on “That Day” (as the agents refer to it). Mrs. Kennedy seldom accompanied the President on political trips, and this was her first one since the death of their infant son, Patrick. Next to the image of my school teacher, the image that stands out most clearly in my memory is that of SA Clint Hill climbing onto the back of the limo to do his job. What doesn’t always show up in clips of the Zapruder film is that agent Hill helped Mrs. Kennedy back into the seat and then covered her and the President with his own body in case of more shots. He was doing his job without hesitation.

Although The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence was written by formeragent, Gerald Blaine (with Lisa McCubbin — an award-winning journalist), it tells the stories of many agents on that assignment. Much of the book deals with Clint Hill and also the hard-fought emotional journey of their entire group in the years after the tragedy. As Blaine states in the trailer, the agents felt like they failed in their duty to protect the President.

After a prologue by the author and a foreword by Clint Hill, the book is divided into four parts, each with several chapters. Each chapter begins with a quote from President Kennedy such as this one from chapter one, “The pay is good and I can walk to work.” Blaine continues with parts titled, “The Men,” “The Job,” “That Day,” and finally “Our Lives.”

After a prologue by the author and a foreword by Clint Hill, the book is divided into four parts, each with several chapters. Each chapter begins with a quote from President Kennedy such as this one from chapter one, “The pay is good and I can walk to work.” Blaine continues with parts titled, “The Men,” “The Job,” “That Day,” and finally “Our Lives.”

Readers are brought behind the scenes and public façade to experience the everyday lives of the agents and their charges. As we read about the daily and minute-by-minute events leading up to and beyond November 22, we also learn about their relationships with the First Family and how they came to be good friends and companions despite formalities. Agents had to work closely together and form bonds that would allow them to communicate without words, computers, cell phones, and other technology we enjoy today. We’re transported back to a time when a “look,” a raised eyebrow or a simple hand signal could speak volumes. These agents didn’t speak into their cuffs, as there was nothing there but a wrist watch.

To no one’s surprise, the agents both collectively and individually defended the President and his family both literally and figuratively. No way would they confirm any of the peccadilloes for which the Kennedy brothers are now famous. They do confirm the Warren Commission and staunchly deny any involvement by their associates as suggested by some of the less credible conspiracy theories. Perhaps the agents can, in their lifetime, as President Lincoln said, be assuaged the anguish of their bereavement and be left with the cherished memory of the loved and lost to whom they were so loyal.

The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence contains two sixteen-page sections of black and white glossy prints featuring the agents at work. This volume will be a welcome addition to the library of any serious Kennedy student. The Discovery Channel will air a special titled, “The Kennedy Detail” on December 2nd & 3rd, 2010. Check your local listings for time and channel.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Friday, December 24, 2010

Kennedy's keepers reveal all

Retired U.S. Secret Service agents tell tales of protecting JFK's family

By Melanie Jackson, Special to the Sun

The Kenedy Detail

By Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin

Simon and Schuster, 448 pages, $32

The U.S. Secret Service agents saw right away that their new president was going to be trouble. His predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had acknowledged crowds with a mere nod. John F. Kennedy waded right into them.

After the 1960 U.S. election, an agent urged Kennedy to come away from an impromptu crush of well-wishers.

"Either Kennedy didn't hear him over the noise of the crowd or he was choosing to ignore his strong suggestion . . . Kennedy seemed as if he truly wanted to meet the people and greet each one of them directly."

As retired agent Gerald Blaine recounts in The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence, the charismatic, outgoing president was particularly eager to be accessible in 1963, with a close election looming the next year. "If I don't mingle with people, I couldn't get elected dogcatcher," he told the U.S. Secret Service a week before the fatal trip to Dallas. During motorcades, JFK became impatient with agents' practice of standing on the running boards and on specially attached steps at the back of his limo. In a much-quoted directive, he ordered the "Ivy League charlatans" to drop back to the car behind.

Clint Hill was the agent of Zapruder-video fame who jumped on the presidential limo after JFK was shot on Nov. 22, 1963. Jacqueline Kennedy was crawling over the trunk, dazedly trying to retrieve part of her husband's skull. Hill pushed Jackie back into the seat and shielded both her and the dying president -- admittedly after the fact, and this is what haunts him. "If I had reacted just a little bit quicker," he agonized in a 1975 interview with 60 Minutes.

But, as anyone reading The Kennedy Detail can't help thinking, there was little Hill or anyone else could have done, given JFK's instructions. Blaine relates how Hill, assigned to protect Jackie, felt uneasy being stuck in the car behind:

"He moved his head constantly: his eyes scanning along the left side of the road, up ahead, and then back again, the pink hat always within his gaze. She was no more than five yards ahead of him, but she might as well have been on the other side of Dallas. I shouldn't be this far away. I should be on the back of that limousine."

The conspiracy theorists, or CTs as they refer to themselves online, have seized on the revelation about JFK's keep-your-distance directive. Blaine is lying, they claim. The agents were in on the assassination! It's all part of the decades-long coverup by: the Central Intelligence Agency; Lyndon Johnson, JFK's vice-president who succeeded him; or any number of other evil plotters. If you're of a masochistic bent, Google the name "Vince Palamara" and be blog-hectored on the "deceit" contained in The Kennedy Detail.

If you're interested in John F. Kennedy and his family, though, read Blaine's engagingly written book for the agents' memories. Jackie, for example, loved smoking, but felt it inappropriate for the public to see her puffing away. So, when she and Hill were driving somewhere, she would hand him the cigarette as soon as they reached their destination. And she was not amused the day loud crunching sounds reached her ears: Hill had run over a turtle.

Another time, an agent let young Caroline and her buddies wander away from a park playground. The kids thought it'd be fun to overturn a rock -- only to discover a diamondback rattlesnake coiling for a strike. The agent briskly shot it.

The children were thrilled, but the agent was convinced Jackie would have him fired. Enter Caroline's nanny. Maud Shaw quietly convinced Caroline it would be better not to upset her parents by telling them. The little girl stayed mum -- one can only wish the CTs would do the same.

Melanie Jackson keeps her own evil plotters fictional. Her latest novel, for young adults, is Fast Slide, published by Orca.

I am at a loss as how to address you, Agent Blaine, Mr. Blaine or Jerry. Sir, words cannot do justice, so a simple thank you will have to do. When you were on the Ronn Owens show in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to listen in detail to you. I also called in. I amalso Jerry, I asked about the 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll. On the day of the assassination of President Kennedy, I was sitting in study hall. The announcement came. Complete silence. School was dismissed and I headed home. I began thinking. This is the first time I can remember really being worried about my Mother. I began running until I ran through the front door of our rented home in Santa Clara.

After graduating from high school, I spent 8 years in the United States Air Force. The 1st four years in administration and the 2nd four attached to the Military Police. It was at Warren Air Force Base that I served under then Colonel Clarence S. Clark (Sonny to his friends). He was later promoted to Brigadier General and took command attendance at the Wyoming State Police Academy. Shortly after graduation from the academy, I discharged from the military.

Eventually I wound up in Law Enforcement. A couple very short months with the newly formed Wyoming State Police out of the capitol building in Cheyenne then a move back to my home town of San Jose, California.

I served with the San Jose Airport Police Division for about 6 months then was hired as a full time officer with the City of San Jose. The next 29 plus years could never have been imagined. June 1982, I was involved in a shooting. This took its toll on me and my family. I lost two very good friends to suicide. We lost our pilot (Air One) when Pilot Desmond Casey developed engine failure and crash landed in an intersection, avoiding the heavily populated streets around it.

We lost several officers to homicides, a motor cycle accident, and to other various causes. It wasn't until I lost my friend and brother, Terry Lee Kepler at age 48 (also a member of the San Jose Police Department) to a massive heart attack that I decided it was time to move on.

This brings me to my point I guess. I am thankful to you and your fellow agents (past and present). I know how it is to stuff it and hold your emotions in for years on end. While I did not suffer the trauma on the same level as you and the Kennedy Detail agents, I can appreciate the suffering. My very heartfelt thanks for your book, "The Kennedy Detail". It is one more step in a lifetime of healing.

I will close with one of my favorite quotes as you saw fit to begin each chapter with one. "WE NEVER TOUCH PEOPLE SO LIGHTLY THAT WE DO NOT LEAVE A TRACE. " Peggy Taylor Millian.

For the first time, a member of the Secret Service assigned to guard President Kennedy, provides details “to set the record straight.”

The book begins with a Forward by the author, and another by Clint Hill, the security agent assigned to protect Mrs. Kennedy, who was so prominent in his efforts to protect the president on that fateful day. From this beginning, a reader is introduced to the extensive planning and details required to protect the President of the United States as well as other Members of State and their families. Details are provided of the precautionary measures taken for every trip, every motorcade, every personal appearance, and even during the night hours.

It details how every police report of ‘persons of interest,’ whether actual criminals, known agitators, or just ‘some nut’ is scrutinized and the precautionary measures that are taken, the manner in which motorcade routes are examined and programmed and even the specific automobiles and drivers that are required – all of the host of details one does not realize are necessary to reduce the state of vulnerability of the President of the United States.

Vignettes of the agents’ home life, their wives and children, also are presented in a simple manner that bring clearly to mind the dedication that this group of men must have to provide the efficient force they have become.

Actual description of the assassination of the President is presented graphically, with all details of the shots fired. The journey to the hospital, activities within the hospital and subsequent handling of the president’s body, also are described in detail, so as to make all theories of conspiracy seem untenable. Descriptions of the funeral and family actions also are faithfully described in all of their heart-wrenching detail.

The authors further have provided a look at the after-assassination life of Clint Hill that provides a description of the horrendous effect an action of this magnitude could have on persons as dedicated as these men.

In summary, as a person who lived through this horrendous period of history, and remembers following each and every detail as presented by the media, I am fascinated to read the descriptions of factors not presented at the time. The Kennedy Detail is a book that everyone should read. It provides essential details about a particularly prominent, albeit traumatic, incident in history in a most readable form.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Congratulations on your book. You penned .feelings, emotions and frustrations that I and others have not been able to come to terms with or verbalize for the past 48 years. For that, thank you. Your book and the discovery piece tonight reminded me of the greatest team of men I have ever been associated with and I now can hold up my head with pride for serving on The Kennedy Detail.

Gerald Blaine, one of the secret service agents assigned to the Kennedy detail the day the President was assassinated on November 22, 1963, reports on his and his colleagues rememberances of the day. Mr. Blaine is joined in conversation, by his co-author Lisa McCubbin and Clint Hill, the agent who covered Jackie Kennedy following the shooting. The event is held at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.

About the Authors

Gerald Blaine

Gerald Blaine is a former U.S. Secret Service Agent who served on President Eisenhower's and President Kennedy's security detail. For more information, visit kennedydetail.com.

Friday, December 17, 2010

The Kennedy Detail Author to Hold Grand Junction Book SigningRetired Secret Service Agent Recounts Day Kennedy Was Assassinated

KREX News RoomMatt Kroschel

Grand Junction - A Grand Junction author is back on the Western Slope after a whirlwind tour across the globe promoting his newest book and you can get a chance to meet him in Grand Junction.

Former U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine's book The Kennedy Detail, has everybody talking. It is the first time agents who were there on the day President Kennedy was assassinated have shared their stories. From New York to San Francisco, Blaine says the tour has been an experience of a lifetime.

The Kennedy Detail book signing will be held Friday at Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Grand Junction from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Blaine tells NewsChannel 5 he is eager to meet some of his local fans and share his book with the Western Slope.

The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence was written by Gerald Blaine, one of 34 Secret Service Agents who protected John Fitzgerald Kennedy and who also served as an agent protecting two other Presidents on the White House Detail. It was written along with Lisa McCubbin, an award-winning journalist who has worked for three major television news networks, and the story includes contributions from most of the Secret Service agents who were on the Kennedy Detail.

Recently published by Gallery Books (November 2, 2010), it’s an authoritative account that shares historical facts and personal recollections. The story is told in third person, taking into account personal recollections shared by other Kennedy Secret Service agents who contributed to the book. It details events of November 22, 1963, and the aftermath, but also shares the human side of being a Secret Service agent: how they were traumatized by the events of that day and the sacrifices their wives made by raising children alone as their husbands traveled with the President.Blaine and McCubbin also disclose a variety of behind-the scenes-stories related to the assassination as well as the authors’ conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It shares information on what the job was like in the 1960s: carrying index cards in their pockets of suspected threats or individuals, running 8 or more miles alongside the presidential limo wearing black polished shoes that left their feet blistered, long hours that included no breaks for eating and very little sleep, and the amount of planning and work that went into advances (trips to secure areas before the presidential visit).

It also illustrated the times. Life in the 1960s was racially charged (a black Secret Service agent was almost denied a room in a Texas hotel due to racial prejudice), and the Bay of Pigs was fresh in the minds of many Cubans.

The Kennedy Detail takes the reader on a ride that is fast paced, intelligent, emotional, moving, humorous, sad, and historically factual. For example,I smiled when I learned how JFK got short sleeved shirts for all his agents to wear while protecting him in Florida. I enjoyed JFK's humor and personable demeanor. According to Blaine, JFK loved to tease and even told one new agent, “I heard you didn’t vote for me.” Watching the agent's facial expression change from a smile to "horror," Kennedy just smiled, patted his shoulder, and walked away. I was also charmed by stories about the “Kiddie detail,” remembering how John Jr., almost three years old, loved watching helicopters land in his back yard.

Genuine photographs (taken of the Secret Service agents, their families, their work, trips, the President and his family, the motorcades) were shared in various sections of the book. This allowed the reader to go back in time and remember or learn what it was like during Kennedy's presidency. Kennedy quotes were shared at the beginning of each chapter and were subtly missed as the book switched gears and described the Johnson years, following Camelot. The quotes illustrated Kennedy's sharp mind and vision. My personal favorite was located at the beginning of chapter 14: "For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future."

Blaine and McCubbin's sharp ability to re-tell events made me feel like I was a “fly on the wall,” watching the men who protected the President. I was able to visualize what it was like waiting outside Kennedy’s hospital room as the doctors frantically tried to save the President’s life. I felt the sadness Jacqueline Kennedy must have felt after losing her infant son Patrick and later her husband. I felt the trauma that scarred many agents over the past 50 years and understood that through the writing of this book many of them began to heal.

It's is a remarkable story about a remarkable group of men protecting one remarkable man and his family. I highly recommend the book. The Kennedy Detail is a wonderful read and makes the perfect gift for anyone who loves history and is interested in learning details about the “six seconds in Dallas” that took place on November 22, 1963.

Pleasanton Weekly Staff Former U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine will be at the Pleasanton Public Library Sunday, December 19th, 2pm in the library meeting room to talk about President John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963 and his years as one of the agents responsible for protecting the president.

At the 2 p.m. discussion, which is open free to the public, Blaine also will talk about his new book, "The Kennedy Detail," which is available at Towne Center Books in downtown Pleasanton and will be on sale at the library event. Towne Center Books is hosting the library event.

Blaine was serving in the Secret Service in Texas when Kennedy was shot. Drawing on the memories of his fellow agents, he captures the energetic, crowd-loving young president, who banned agents from his car and often plunged into raucous crowds with little warning.

Blaine describes the careful planning that went into JFK's Texas swing, the worries and concerns that agents, working long hours with little food or rest, had during the trip. And he describes the intensely private first lady making her first-ever political appearance with her husband, just months after losing a newborn baby.

Most of all," Judy Wheeler, co-owner of Towne Center Books said, "this is a look into the lives of men who devoted their entire beings to protecting the presidential family: the stress of the secrecy they kept, the emotional bonds that developed, the terrible impact on agents' psyches and families, and their astonishment at the country's obsession with far-fetched conspiracy theories and finger-pointing."

A book 50 years in coming, "The Kennedy Detail "is a portrait of incredible camaraderie and incredible heartbreak--a true, must-read story of heroism in its most complex and human form.

Blaine was assigned in November 1960 to the Kennedy detail and, for the next three years, traveled with President Kennedy all over the world. In 1963, when the president was assassinated, the U.S. Secret Service had a budget of about $4.1 million dollars and a staff of about 200 agents nationwide. Just 34 agents were responsible for protecting John F. Kennedy around the clock. They worked in eight-hour shifts, rotating the times of their shifts every two weeks.

"At the time of the assassination," Blaine writes, "while riding in an open convertible in a motorcade through Dallas, Secret Service Agent Clint Hill was just 10 feet from the president, desperately trying to hurl his body in front of the gunfire, when the president's head exploded before his eyes. Covered with blood and pieces of the president's brain, Agent Hill pushed Jackie Kennedy into the back seat and, clinging to the trunk of the open top limousine as it sped away from Dealey Plaza to Parkland Hospital, all he could do was slam his fist in anger, and give the thumbs down sign to the agents in the follow-up car behind him."

"For nearly 50 years, the close-knit group of men who protected JFK has refused to talk about that tragic day--until now," Wheeler said.

Blaine also writes about how the assassination threw the country and the White House into sudden turmoil and despair.

"Abruptly, the Kennedy Detail became the Johnson Detail," Blaine writes. "There was no time to grieve; no time to deal with feelings of anger, frustration and guilt."

On July 4, 1964, Jerry Blaine resigned from the Secret Service to join the private sector.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Well everyone else has book awards, so I decided that BNN should. Of course there is no tangible prize, I am currently out of ink in the printer and my wife just used up our supply of stamps sending Christmas cards, so the winners don’t even get a certificate mailed to them even if I could print it!

Of course because this is my own personal award system, I get to choose the authors and categories, no votes were cast so no ballot stuffing could occur. I have been objective. There was no favoritism shown being my friend or quoting me did not help what so ever! This is perfectly objective…..

On a more serious note, I have read well over 100 books this year, and if I didn’t read it, it didn’t go in the hat. Did you know that some book awards are handed out, and no-one even bothered to read the darn thing? The numbers are not in yet, but based on previous years I can guess that 2010 saw 300,000 new book titles.

I hardly scraped the surface with my measly reading habits! How can I come up with book awards based on only 100 or so books? Well my answer to that is name me a book award that reads everything in print. I also have a rule, I don’t do the rich and famous. These books are mostly Ghost Written and have little to do with reality. In my opinion 2010 represented a great year of reading for me. All of the books I read were notable and exceptional. Every single author deserves an award, alas there is not enough space to mention them all.

What surprised me was the incredible high quality of the Print On Demand books. Reviewers and traditional publishers have long bashed the POD sector because of the lack of formal processes, agents, editors, etc. The bashing needs to stop, I saw as many typos and other issues in the Trad Books! POD is no longer the orphan step child of the publishing world.

2010 was an interesting year, I saw many authors publishing their second or third book. I also heard from many authors who are actively writing a new book in spite of their insistence that they were done!

So the BNN awards go to:

Best JFK Book

This one took a bit of mulling over. So much has been written about JFK that he is not so much a figure in history, he is an industry. But the king of the hill this year has to be Gerald Blaine his book The Kennedy Detail. It has provoked a good deal of grumbling from some factions of JFK ‘experts’. Personally I thought it was a great read and adds some significant data about the assassination. This book is what a friend of mine refers to as ‘living history’, a book written by someone involved directly in an event. Gerald Blaine was one of the select few secret service agents assigned to protect JFK

Sunday, December 12, 2010

DENVER - Almost 50 years later, President John F. Kennedy's assassination remains as mysterious and controversial as the day it happened.

Although we've heard the story plenty of times, a new book tells it from a fresh point of view. The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence gathers together the memories of secret service agents who were at the president's side during his final hours. Two of those secret servicemen, Gerry Blaine and Clint Hill, sat down with 9NEWS at 8 a.m. to talk about the book.

"This is not based on theory. It's based on fact by the agents who participated, who were assigned to the president and from their viewpoint, their records, the reports and investigations," said Blaine, who co-wrote the book and currently lives in Denver.

Hill, who wrote the forward to Kennedy Detail, was assigned to protect Mrs. Kennedy that historic day in Texas, and he was the closest secret service agent to the Kennedys' car when the president was shot.

"I heard this explosive noise from the right rear. I scanned to my right to get to that noise. When I did that I had to look across the president's car and I saw him grabbing his throat," Hill said. "I knew something was wrong. He was in trouble so I jumped and ran to the President's car trying to get there so I could get on top between him and Mrs. Kennedy and the shooter, whoever it may have been."

By the time Hill was able to get onto the car, the president had already been shot at three times.

"There was a third shot that hit him in the head just above the right ear to the rear. [It] opened up enough of a wound so that the material spewed out over myself and the back of the car," Hill said.

Hill said at that point Mrs. Kennedy came out of the back of the car to try to retrieve some material that came off of president's head.

"She didn't even know I was there. I got off of the car, I pushed her back into the seat. He fell over to his left into her lap," Hill said.

At that point, Hill could see the damage was fatal.

"His right side of his head was up and exposed. I could see the hole in his head was about the size of my palm; almost all the brain material in that area was gone. It was all over the back of the car: blood, bone fragments," Hill said. "His eyes were fixed."

Despite all the conspiracy theories out there about the Kennedy assassination, both Blaine and Hill said they believed Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

"No doubt in my mind," Blaine said.

Hill says he feels a lot of guilt for the president's assassination.

"I was the only agent who had the chance to do something more because of the position I was in," Hill said. "I feel a great sense of responsibility for not being able to do more."

Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Discovery Channel Presents: The Kennedy Detail

“The boss got hit.” Those were the words following a knock on his door that told Gerald Blaine what had happened in Dallas. At the time, Blaine was a special agent with the Secret Service and was resting in a hotel room in Austin. He was one of 16 of the 40 agents in “The Kennedy Detail” sent ahead in advance of the President’s arrival. Austin was to be the next stop after Dallas in a series of stops that began in Florida then proceeded to San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, and Dallas.

The President’s trip had gone smoothly, even in Florida where tensions were high (with the Cuban population there) in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was in the 28-mile long motorcade in Florida that JFK had ordered the agents off the back of his open-top limousine. Campaigning season was in full swing and the President wanted to be closer to the people (voters). The agents understood that same order would stand in Texas.

The first half of the program depicts the agents protecting President Eisenhower and the transition to the Kennedy administration. Close and lasting relationships between the agents and their charges developed quickly. The First Family learned the names of the agents and treated them like family. Most of the agents were from small towns and middle class economic backgrounds and were charmed by the Kennedy family and impressed by their wealth and all its accoutrements.

With the death of the Kennedy’s infant son, Patrick, the agents experienced the loss like family and as they described, “a heaviness hung over the First Family”. It would get worse.

Almost a dozen former agents appear in the broadcast giving first hand accounts and their opinions about their jobs and “That Day”. Clint Hill, the agent assigned to the First Lady’s detail gets the most air time. He was the agent (shown here) who jumped onto the back of the limousine and shielded the President and Mrs. Kennedy from any further shots that may have been fired.

Regardless of personal politics, viewers will be moved by this emotional program. Not only was the President murdered that day, our country was attacked. In 1963 many felt the same way as other generations had on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2000.

Footage of the agents expressing their thoughts and feelings reveal their humanity and their emotions of not only losing a friend, but coming to grips with what they believed as a failure in their duty.

The Discovery Channel premiered a two-hour special on Thursday, December 2, 2010 based on Blaine’s book, The Kennedy Detail. It is scheduled to repeat on December 3 and no doubt will eventually be available on DVD.

Gerald Blaine, one of the secret service agents assigned to the Kennedy detail the day the President was assassinated on November 22, 1963, reports on his and his colleagues rememberances of the day. Mr. Blaine is joined in conversation, by his co-author Lisa McCubbin and Clint Hill, the agent who covered Jackie Kennedy following the shooting. The event is held at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.

About the Authors

Gerald Blaine

Gerald Blaine is a former U.S. Secret Service Agent who served on President Eisenhower's and President Kennedy's security detail. For more information, visit kennedydetail.com.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the nation’s 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. When most people think of Kennedy, they can’t help but think of the event that changed us forever on November 22, 1963 near the grassy knoll of Dallas’ Dealey Plaza. Much has been debated about what really happened on that fall day, but never before have we heard from those who were assigned to handle the President’s security detail until now.

With time moving on and memories fading, former Secret Service agent, Jerry Blaine decided it was time to finally publish the authoritative version of events from those who had the closest view, the U.S. Secret Service detail assigned to handle the president’s security on that fateful day. Though not there in person, Blaine has gone back though notes, records and most importantly his associates who were there on the front lines as the events of the day unfolded to assemble the book, “The Kennedy Detail” with Lisa McCubbin (Gallery Books).

The key witness here is agent Clint Hill, who was assigned to handle security for Jackie Kennedy and who was the one who leapt on the back of the vehicles the shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository. Certainly, the story holds few surprises, but the amount of detail that Blaine has assembled – who said what to whom, how did the drivers react, what where the relationships of the key players to each other and the Kennedy family, etc. – are all outlined in gripping, sequential and astonishing detail. The effect is somewhere between storytelling and a detailed crime report and is the basis of an upcoming special airing November 22nd on the Discovery Channel.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Grown Men Cry

By Gene Mueller

Between holiday parties, dinners with friends, and a trip to Lambeau Sunday, I was able to squeeze out two hours to watch Discovery Channel's "The Kennedy Detail" over the weekend. I knew that the Secret Service agents who guarded President Kennedy and watched him die that day in Dallas were weighing in for the first time on what it was like to serve in the White House, share time with the First Family and, see their boss get murdered on their watch. I knew they'd say that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I'd already read about the agent who almost took out Lyndon Johnson some 13 hours later while the newly sworn-in President was taking an early morning stroll around his DC area home.

What I didn't expect, though, was to see these guys in such obvious pain, tears still coming to their eyes not just when they talked about the assassination but also about other painful moments including the death of the Kennedy's newborn son, Patrick, just months before the President's murder.

Even if you're not an assassination freak, "The Kennedy Detail" is a fascinating look back at what it was like being near the center of power during the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Agent Clint Hill's exchanges with Jacqueline Kennedy are incredible and to my knowledge had never been revealed anywhere.

It was Hill that would climb onto the back of the President's car as the final shot rang out, a bullet that killed Kennedy and changed history. Hill's description of the futile ride to the hospital is riveting, graphic and incredibly sad. So is his tale about his life after the assassination, one that saw him almost drink himself to death as he wrapped himself in guilt and self-indulgence.

It's also sad to hear these men--witnesses to history--talk about their annual reunions and the realization that each one could be their last together as age and illness take their inevitable toll. Kennedy's death was a subject they didn't bring up in previous meetings, and it was only recently that some of them returned to the scene of the crime to make peace with what happened.

They say they wrote their book and did the documentary in part to set the record straight, to put an end to what they call the conspiracy industry--those who take issue with the Warren Commission's finding that Oswald acted alone. Each agent says the shots came from one spot--Oswald's perch--and that he acted alone. They also dismiss as ridiculous some of the more outlandish theories that incriminate some of the agents themselves. Such claims are, indeed, outlandish. Not only do they give the real killer a pass, they blame innocent men who still feel the obvious pain and hurt that comes with realizing that, for six terrible seconds, they weren't able to do their job.

It's not great holiday viewing, and it won't lift your mood, but "The Kennedy Detail" is something all should see, if nothing else to find out more about a fascinating job done by otherwise silent men at one of the more dramatic times in our country's history.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Meet former Kennedy-era Secret Service agents, New York Times Bestselling Authors Gerald Blaine and Clint Hill, along with Journalist Lisa McCubbin, at Book Soup on Monday, December 6th at 7:00pm to discuss and sign Mr. Blaine's new book, The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence.

A book fifty years in coming, The Kennedy Detail is a portrait of incredible camaraderie and incredible heartbreak - a true, must-read story of heroism in its most complex and human form.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Political Books Best-Seller List

“Decision Points” by George W. Bush makes it debut on top of the best-seller list for political books, while “Spoken From the Heart” by his wife, Laura, is at No. 11.

One of the crises of Mr. Bush’s presidency — the financial meltdown of 2008 — is the subject of two other books on the list: “All The Devils Are Here” by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, which is No. 6, and “Griftopia” by Matt Taibbi, at No. 13.

This is the full list of political best sellers:

1 Decision Points by George W. Bush. (Crown, $35.) The former president’s memoir discusses his Christianity, his drinking, his family relationships and challenges of his presidency including 9/11, Iraq and Katrina.

2 Broke by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe. (Threshold/Mercury Radio Arts, $29.99.) The Fox News host presents a plan for fixing the country financially that seeks to unite Americans around the concept of shared sacrifice.

3 Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. (Random House, $27.) An Olympic runner’s story of survival as a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II.

4 America By Heart by Sarah Palin. (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.99.) The former vice-presidential candidate reflects on family, faith and patriotism.

5 Pinheads And Patriots by Bill O’Reilly. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $27.99.) The Fox News commentator scrutinizes the meaning of change in the era of Obama.

6 All The Devils Are Here by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera. (Portfolio/Penguin, $32.95.) Two business journalists examine the financial crisis of 2008.

7 Trickle Up Poverty by Michael Savage. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $26.99.) The radio host criticizes Obama’s policies on the borders, the economy and security.

8 Washington by Ron Chernow. (Penguin Press, $40.) A biog¬raphy of the first president.

10 The Kennedy Detail by Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin. (Gallery, $28.) The events leading up to and after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as told by the Secret Service agents in charge his safety.

Rankings reflect aggregated sales for the weeks ending Nov. 6 through Nov. 27, 2010, at many thousands of venues where a wide range of general interest books are sold nationwide. These include hundreds of independent book retailers (statistically weighted to represent all such outlets nationwide); national, regional and local chains; online and multimedia entertainment retailers; university, gift, supermarket, discount, department stores and newsstands. An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders. Expanded rankings are available on the Web: nytimes.com/books.

For more than four decades, the forces of orthodoxy, from the 1964 Warren commission to Vincent Bugliosi’s 1,648-page Reclaiming History (2007), have insisted that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy. But Amazon now lists more than 1,200 titles on the events of Nov. 22, 1963, and the books keep on coming at such a rate that their number will one day (soon) exceed Bugliosi’s page count. The vast majority oppose the official version. In that regard, their authors are solidly in tune with U.S. popular opinion. Forty years of polling have consistently shown that more than two-thirds of Americans simply don’t believe the Warren report.

That alone is enough to make The Kennedy Detail by Gerald Blaine, one of the 34 Secret Service agents on White House service during JFK’s administration, a stand-out assassination book: the surviving agents—speaking openly for the first time (and only because it was one of their own who asked)—are unanimous that it was Oswald, and Oswald alone. But there is also a wealth of detail about the most traumatic day of their lives, and Blaine’s convincing argument that a protective system that worked for Kennedy’s predecessor was stretched past the breaking point by Kennedy himself. Among the many legacies of JFK—the man who single-handedly retired hats from formal male attire—was a revolution in presidential security.

Dwight Eisenhower, supreme allied commander during the Second World War and president from 1953 to 1961, had lived in a protective bubble almost since Pearl Harbor, so much so that his Secret Service agents spent hours during the lame duck days before JFK’s inauguration teaching Ike how to drive a modern car. Eisenhower didn’t leave the White House often—except to play golf, accompanied by agent/caddies with submachine guns in their club bags—and he rarely drew a crowd or mixed with one. What the Secret Service called its “confidence factor” in protecting him was a sterling 95 per cent.

Kennedy was different. The first president born in the 20th century, he had children younger than any agent had ever had to protect. (Armed babysitting proved its value before the inauguration when three-year-old Caroline and her cousin, Christopher Lawford, 5, were playing in a Palm Beach park. Christopher flipped over a log, agitating an eastern diamondback rattler, which the agent on duty shot to death.)

Far worse than the dangers occasioned by the Kiddie Detail were those posed by the president himself. Having fissured the Democrats’ southern bastion with civil rights initiatives and a failed invasion of Cuba, by the fall of 1963 JFK was more reliant than ever on his personal charisma (and his enormously popular wife, Jackie), and he was determined to press the flesh in vote-rich Florida and Texas as often as possible. He never saw a crowd he didn’t plunge into (even after promising his minders that he wouldn’t), and he loved riding in an open-topped car in long motorcades. He had forbidden agents from riding on the back of his limo—a position from which they could, in the event of a missed first shot, throw themselves over the president before a second could be fired. The Secret Service’s confidence factor just before Kennedy’s death, Blaine notes, was a “totally unacceptable” 70 per cent.

In Dallas on Nov. 22, the 16 agents in the motorcade followed their training and their instincts—jumping out of their cars to hold people back when crowds slowed the limo, once ﬂattening a teenager who came too close—while helplessly scanning the windows and rooftops that lined the 15-km route. They all knew, Blaine writes, that the worst could happen at any time. And then, five minutes from their destination, it did.

In 1963, the Secret Service had 300 agents nationwide and a budget of $4 million; today, its 4,000 agents are equipped with every high-tech security tool that an annual $1.6 billion can buy. There are no more open-topped presidental motorcades—the joint legacy, according to the agents of the Kennedy Detail, of Lee Harvey Oswald and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Former Kennedy-era Secret Service agents, Gerald Blaine and Clint Hill, along with Journalist Lisa McCubbin, will be at Book Soup on Monday, December 6th at 7:00 pm to discuss and sign Mr. Blaine's new book, The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence.

A book fifty years in coming, The Kennedy Detail is a portrait of incredible camaraderie and incredible heartbreak - a true, must-read story of heroism in its most complex and human form.

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BOOK TRAILER

WORTHY OF TRUST AND CONFIDENCE

Kennedy - Nixon Debate

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first Kennedy/Nixon debate, the JFK Library has partnered with YouTube.com to post the full, unabridged footage of the debate.
Click here to watch

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

GERALD BLAINE had the privilege of serving three U.S. presidents as a Special Agent of the Secret Service on the White House detail. After his resignation following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, he embarked on a career path as an expert in high-level corporate security. He retired in 2003 and now lives in Colorado with his wife of more than fifty years.

LISA McCUBBIN is an award winning journalist who has worked for three major television news networks. In the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11, McCubbin provided compelling reports as a foreign correspondent in Saudi Arabia. She currently splits her time between the Middle East and Colorado.

CONTACT INFORMATION

For more information or to have Jerry Blaine speak at your organization’s event! For pricing and availability, please contact Literary and Motion Picture Manager, Ken Atchity.